


You can't take the sky from me (rock and salvation remix)

by Sangerin



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Serenity, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-16
Updated: 2010-05-16
Packaged: 2017-10-09 11:38:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangerin/pseuds/Sangerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It was little wonder Wash was jealous of Mal.  There was a tension there between best friend and husband, between the man she'd been beside through thick and thin, and the man she pledged to stay beside for what life she had left."</p><p>Malcolm Reynolds through Zoe's eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You can't take the sky from me (rock and salvation remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jazzfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzfic/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Five battles Mal fought for the losing side (and won)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/754) by Jazzfic. 



They told her at the very beginning that he was a quiet man. That he was friendly enough, but never got really close to anyone. It seemed to Zoe that keeping your distance was the right way to go about a life like this, where at any time you could lose someone to battle wounds, famine, or to arrest and torture. But although that was what people said about Mal Reynolds, it was never the way she found him. He talked to her from the start, sharing his ideas and strategies, seeking her input. She was his right hand, and his sounding board, a second pair of eyes and ears to pick up what he may have missed.

When she thought on the matter, it was little wonder Wash was jealous of Mal. There was a tension there between best friend and husband, between the man she'd been beside through thick and thin, and the man she pledged to stay beside for what life she had left.

She'd seen the worst of Mal. Seen him at his lowest moments – and there were more of those than most people know. She was by his side in Serenity Valley where it all ended, the moment when he was told to surrender, when he almost threw the comm away in frustration and confusion. She had heard him muttering under his breath, saw the light drain out of his eyes and his expression harden into the cynicism that had been there ever since. She was the only one on _Serenity_ who knew him back when his smiles were lighter and truer; when they meant more.

Sometimes she called him 'Sarge' in her head, referred to him by the first title she knew him by, the one that fit him like a comfortable old brown coat. 'Captain', she knew he liked, but it sat less easy on his shoulders, even though she knew that he and _Serenity_ fit each other like no woman could ever fit with Mal.

Those first few months out in the black together, settling in to their new life, were strange. Zoe felt she was meant to be all things to all people; Mal's confidante, keeping him from going under from all his doubts and frustrations; reluctant big sister to Kaylee, and not at all sure where she stood with Inara. And then there was the navigator, with his laid-back attitude that grated on Zoe's nerves right up to the moment when she realised that he'd managed to worm his laid-back way into her heart, and that she could never be happy without him. Everything got a little too tangled, then, because Zoe and Mal knew each other too well. And it wasn't that Mal begrudged Zoe and Wash their happiness, more that their canoodling was keeping his right hand and first mate from helping him strategise the next job (and the one after that).

By the time they got to Persephone they'd just about become a crew. Zoe had learnt when to leave Jayne alone – most of the time, really - and the rest of them were beginning to know when they ought to leave Zoe and Wash to themselves. Through more luck than good management they'd developed a reputation in circles where it mattered, and although everyone knew that Mal always had the final say, the galley still hosted arguments about whether or not to take on passengers and other forms of entirely legal cargo. Passengers were nothing but trouble and money, but they needed the money and so they took on the passengers. Later, Wash admitted to Zoe that life would be easier if Mal weren't always right. Problem was, Mal had been right: passengers were nothing but trouble, and what they were left with was a shoot-out in the hold and a naked girl curled up in a failed cryogenic box. And Zoe was left with an uncomfortable feeling that both her Captain and her husband had spent far too much time staring at the naked girl for her personal comfort.

Adding three more people to the crew meant adjustments, especially when one of those people was River, with her eyes and her expressions and her strangeness, while another was the Shepherd. Zoe knew how uncomfortable Mal was about his loss of faith; how many nights he had spent sleepless, trying to reconcile something he'd once believed in so strongly with his new need to have faith only in himself. Book's presence on board was just one more reminder of those days; memories that fired who Mal was, but which also haunted him, keeping him tied in place to the knowledge that they were all just one small failure from joining his friends and colleagues in oblivion. But Mal adjusted to Book's presence, just as Zoe stopped watching River quite so much out of the side of her eye, fearing that a knife might fly from her hand unexpectedly. And she stopped watching Wash watching River, too. Funny how quickly she could get his focus back where it ought to be, when she just made a little effort.

And then the day comes. The shoe drops. The 'one small failure' occurs. And although she's known that one day it would happen, no preparation could really have been made for the hole in her heart, the way a black hole seems to be expanding out from her core. No matter how strong she wants to seem, no matter how strong she can be every other minute of the day, she knows that when Mal puts his arm around her, he won't have to say a word before the tears begin falling. Because while she's been his refuge, his sounding board, his backup all these years, he's been hers, too, without her even realising it.

And when they take to the black again, with Mal and River at the helm, she watches the two of them. It's a slow, delicate dance back and forth, stepping carefully over the eggshells of everything they've all suffered. Mal's cautious respect for River, the way he knows that she is deadly, but stays close despite the danger. She's always a human being to him, which is more important than it sounds. River has never been quite human to Jayne, nor Inara to Mal. But Mal and River, they click, somehow, and Zoe thinks that maybe he's finally found the woman that can make him even more than he already is.


End file.
